How to Write a Basic News Story

News writing can be tricky because it goes against most of the other forms of writing people may be use to such as writing an essay or short story. But as long as you keep in mind that immediacy is the most important thing you should do fine.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Newspaper
• Pen/Pencil
• Paper/ word processing program

1. Get a newspaper and read at least four news stories in the paper. This will help you get a good idea of how a news story should read.

2. Write the most important information of what happened in the first sentence. This is called a lede. In a news story you need to capture your audience’s attention immediately and starting the sentence with the most important aspect that happened is the best way to start.

3. Continuing writing from the most important information to the least important. Once the lede is written, write the second most important information in the second sentence and continuing to the least important info with each following sentence.

4. End the story with the least important information in the whole story. Unlike essays, you do not have to summarize your story or come up with a snappy sentence to conclude your story. Just state the least important fact.